April 9, 2016

Senator Pat Toomey Shows Up For His Job, Tells Them He's Not Gonna Do It Anyway

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland will get his meeting with Sen. Pat Toomey but time seems to be the only thing the Pennsylvania Republican is willing to give to the president’s nominee.

Mr. Toomey already has said he will not vote to confirm any candidate nominated by Barack Obama during the president’s waning time in office.

“Sen. Toomey has made his position on the nomination clear, namely that the American people should have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court nominee,” when they elect a new president in November, Toomey spokeswoman E.R. Anderson said this afternoon.

I still think, then, that since the people of Pennsylvania should also have a voice in every decision the Senator should be making in the next few months (since he's in the last few months of his term, too!) he should do nothing until the next Senate is sworn in in January.

And if the state "goes blue" in the next presidential election, even if Toomey is reelected, he should do nothing since the population of the state will have voted against his party and his political ideology by electing another non-republican president. They will have spoken.

Note to the Trolls: those last two paragraphs are intended to be absurd, they're intended to show how absurd the GOP's position is regarding Merrick Garland. It's absurd because simply not a rational position for the GOP to take. And yet there they are.

And sitting right in the middle of them is Pat Toomey, embattled Senator running for re-election in the State of Pennsylvania.

He's still not doing his job. By sticking to the notion that the "American people should have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court nominee" he's ignoring the obvious fact that they already had their voice heard - twice, when they elected Barack Obama.

Senator Toomey, you should be supporting, instead, the notion that Merrick Garland deserves a hearing and an up or down vote.

2 comments:

He's just following the Honorable Senator from Delaware, Joseph Biden, who said in 2005:

"There is no stipulation in the Constitution as to how the Senate is to express its advice or give its consent. President Bush incorrectly -- incorrectly -- maintains that each nominee for a federal judgeship is entitled to an up or down vote. The Constitution does not say that. I say the Constitution itself does not say that each nominee is entitled to an up or down vote. The Constitution doesn’t say that, it doesn’t even say that there has to be a vote with respect to the giving of its consent. The Senate can refuse to confirm a nominee simply by saying nothing and doing nothing."

Surely you're not saying the Democratic then-Senator was wrong, are you?

No, President Obama CANNOT appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court if the Senate does nothinghttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/04/11/no-president-obama-cannot-appoint-merrick-garland-to-the-supreme-court-if-the-senate-does-nothing/Can President Obama appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court without the consent of the Senate?https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/04/11/can-president-obama-appoint-merrick-garland-to-the-supreme-court-without-the-consent-of-the-senate/"This argument is wrong for multiple reasons. Advice and consent is a prerequisite for appointment, not a “constitutional duty” of the Senate. Nothing in the Constitution requires the Senate to act on nominations in any way."